Browning's Model '81 BLR Takedown and History.

Release Date: 11/30/2010

An article in American Rifleman Magazine On-line.

Browning BLR ’81 Stainless Takedown Review.

This is a great article to give you some insights into what has become a legendary rifle. John Browning made much of his early reputation with his great lever actions like the Model 1886, the 1892, the 1894 and the 1895 -- not to mention the venerable Single Shot 1885. Today's Model '81 BLR continues with this tradition with its exceptionally strong action, fast handling and solid performance all around. In this article by the staff at American Rifleman magazine, you can get an outsiders view of this rifle including testing and some careful evaluation. We hope you find it useful as you make your purchase decision.

Browning’s latest BLR reinterprets it in a uniquely modern way. Written By NRA Staff. Excerpts used with permission.

"Although the lever-action rifle is a traditional and distinctively American design, Browning’s latest BLR, produced by Miroku of Japan, reinterprets it in a uniquely modern way. In the original BLR, a geared, rack-and-pinion mechanism transported a cylindrical bolt body within a steel receiver, locking its separate rotating head into mating lugs machined directly into the receiver’s walls. The bolt body’s underside was toothed, and an elliptical cog on the lever rotated a small gear attached to a larger pinion gear that drove it fore and aft.

"In the BLR ’81—a revision designed to lighten the gun and modernize its manufacture—the same basic mechanism is housed in an unstressed aluminum receiver. The bolt body features six longitudinal splines that mate with corresponding grooves in the receiver. The bolt head has a cam cut in its neck that acts on a transverse pin in the bolt’s body to rotate it into and out of battery in a steel breeching ring threaded to the barrel.

"A plunger ejector is at 4 o’clock on the bolt face and a sliding-plate extractor moves within the face of the locking lug at 10 o’clock. The gun’s manual safety is in the form of a clever folding hammer spur that pivots on a cross pin in the hammer’s body. After moving the hammer to its half-cock notch, pushing it forward with the firing hand’s thumb causes it to abut the bolt body but disallows its contact with the firing pin’s tail."

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